Author: Hafiz Noor Shams

For the past two days, I have been watching the Democratic National Convention with great interest. The excitement is so much different from watching UMNO’s convention back in Malaysia.

On the first day, Bill Clinton was up. I think the thing best remembered about his yesterday speech is this:

On the other hand, the Republicans in Washington believe that America should be run by the “right” people — their people — in a world in which America acts unilaterally when we can and cooperates when we have to.

I like it when he said Republicans want America to be run by the right people – their people. And somehow, it rings true for Malaysia if the words American, Washington and and Republicans are switched to appropriate words like UMNO and such.

And:

During the Vietnam War, many young men, including the current president, the vice president and me, could have gone to Vietnam and didn’t. John Kerry came from a privileged background. He could have avoided going, too. But instead he said, “Send me.”

Al Gore was great too. He, as expected talked about the environment and I think he almost mentioned eco-terrorism.

All in all, I would say that the environment received sufficient attention.

Today, it was more about medicare.

But the spotlight, in my opinion was on Barack Obama, the one person stood up on the podium not by reputation but by charisma. He is currently a senatorial candidate for the state of Illinois.

Barack Obama is oratorically great; his speech was simply inspiring. Unlike all the other speakers so far, he was probably the only one that is not widely known unlike Bill Clinton or Al Gore. Despite that, he managed to rouse the crowd in a way Howard Dean did once. Though Howard Dean, which gave his own speech today, stirred the crowd in the crudest but effective way many months ago, Obama excited the delegates with his coolness in expressing his words.

I bet tomorrow papers are going to talk about Obama a lot. If it were up to me, I would declare Obama as the best speaker so far for the past two days.

When the Bosnian War started in 1992, I was a kid in an elementary school. I heard about it frequently then in the mass media but I did not really understand what caused the war. All I knew was that it was an atrocity by the Serbs. Some called it genocide.

Though the Serbs were blamed, I now do not think anybody could be blamed. Despite their cruel act, they were merely defending a crumbling federation. In a way, it was a fighting for a marriage integrity. If I were in their shoe, I would probably do the same thing – a necessary evil for a greater purpose from a certain point of view.

Whatever it was called, I could not care less because I did not feel the pain back then. To mention it again, I was a kid and more, that war happened thousands of miles away. It was virtually impossible to me to hear the scream of the victims. Life was easy for me. I was only concerned about my playtime and from time to time, a few questions something like what is one plus one or a little bit worse, what is six times nine. Multiplication was a bitch back then.

Day in and day out, I grew older and I trust that it is not too much to say that I grew up. Unfortunately, the conflict in Bosnia also progressed for the worse. A few things that I remember about the conflict were cities as such Zagreb, Sarajevo, Srebrenica and Banja Luka; the main participants of the war of course, which included the Croats, the Serbs and the Bosnians; a few prominent individual like Karadzic and others; a few unbelievable events like the bombing of Belgrade by NATO and how the Russian moved in a few paratroopers as to protest NATO’s action; a few buildings like a mosque in some obscured place and the bridge in the city of Mostar. Somehow, the name Novi Sad also comes to mind but I do not remember what Novi Sad was.

There were a few other things. One is the Malaysian military deployment to the Balkans as part of a United Nations’ peacekeeping mission and a sudden in flux of Bosnian refugees into Malaysia. If my memory does not fail me, there was a Slavic named Adam or something in my life once. He stayed with my grandparents at about the same time when the conflict occured. I am not sure whether he was a Bosnian or not, or even a Slavic but he was certainly a Caucasian. And if I am correct, around the same time, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were making a hit. I wonder what happened to him now.

It was not until about four years later, peace was achieved at Dayton, Ohio thanks to the then President of the United States, Bill Clinton. That peace seems to last though a few other things continued for some times in Kosovo and in Macedonia after the peace treaty as part of a larger conflict that in the end erased Yugoslavia from the map.

When I was small, I developed a love for architecture. In fact, I once dreamed to be an architect. I love buildings and when I first saw the bridge in Mostar, the image was instantly glued to my mind. This one unique bridge crossing a river at an audacious angle; it seemed that the architect of the bridge would have an easier job if he had built a typical bridge. But what do I know?

I am neither an architect nor an engineer. But what I do know is the beauty of the bridge, importance of the bridge, the symbolism behind the marble structure.

The bridge represented unity among the Bosnians, the Croats and the Serbs. And when the bridge was destroyed by artillery shells, it appeared that the symbolic meaning of Mostar changed from unity to disunity. I do not know how the residents of Mostar felt after seeing the destruction of the bridge but if I were there, not as a kid but as me in this moment of time, I would have been torn apart into pieces. I would have been devastated.

Today, or was it yesterday, the bridge reopens after a reconstruction effort by an arm of the United Nations, UNESCO. The bridge, from pictures that I saw, is strikingly gorgeous; a white construction across a literally blue river as it had in the past. It looks peaceful despite the fact the bridge has met death once.

Once, I heard someone somewhere said, with respect to the bridge that he, they will build an older Old Bridge. Impossible to build an older bridge to say the least, but the words are discernable given the devastation of the war.

May the bridge stands older than the original Stari Most. May it stands older than you and me, and everything else that come and go.

This calls for a celebration of peace.